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of divine right and passive obedience. He sneered impartially at the bigotry of the Churchman and at the bigotry of the Puritan. He was equally unable to comprehend how any man should object to saints' days and surplices, and how any man should persecute any other man for objecting to them. In temper he was what in our time is called a Conservative. In theory he was a Republican. Even when his dread of anarchy and his disdain for vulgar delusions led him to side for a time with the defenders of arbitrary power, his intellect was always with Locke and Milton. Indeed, his jests upon hereditary monarchy were sometimes such as would have better become a member of the Calf's-head Club than a privy counsellor of the Stuarts. In religion he was so far from being a zealot, that he was called by the uncharitable an atheist: but this imputation he vehemently repelled; and in truth, though he sometimes gave scandal by the way in which he exerted his rare powers both of argumentation and of ridicule on serious subjects, he seems to have been by no means unsusceptible of religious impressions. He was the chief of those politicians whom the two great parties contemptuously called Trimmers. Instead of quarrelling with this nickname, he assumed it as a title of honour, and vindicated, with great vivacity, the dignity of the appellation. Thus Halifax was

a trimmer on principle. He was also a trimmer by the constitution of both his head and of his heart. His understanding was keen, sceptical, inexhaustibly fertile in distinctions and objections; his taste refined; his sense of the ludicrous exquisite; his temper placid and forgiving, but fastidious, and by no means prone either to malevolence or to enthusiastic admiration. Such a man could not long be constant to any band of political allies. He must not, however, be confounded with the vulgar crowd of renegades. For though, like them, he passed from side to side, his transition was always in the direction opposite to theirs. He had nothing in common with those who fly from extreme to extreme, and who regard the party which they have deserted with an animosity far exceeding that of consistent enemies. His place was between the hostile divisions of the community, and he never wandered far beyond the frontier of either. The party to which he at any moment belonged, was the party which, at that moment, he liked least, because it was the party of which, at that moment, he had the nearest view. He was therefore always severe upon his violent associates, and was always in friendly relations with his moderate opponents. Every faction in the day of its insolent and vindictive triumph incurred his censure, and every faction, when vanquished and persecuted, found in him a protector. To his lasting honour, it must be mentioned that he attempted to save those victims whose fate has left the deepest stain both on the Whig and the Tory name."-I. 242-245.

The third chapter, to which we have alluded before, is one of the most remarkable in the whole work, and illustrates in a most striking manner Mr. Macaulay's power of presenting in one view the gathered fruits of an immense and discursive reading. It is a general description of the state of England at the accession of James II. in 1685, reaching back to the middle of the 17th century. The state of our military and naval forces, agriculture and manufactures, town and country life, literature and literary men, science and art,-every thing, in short, in which that age at once differed from our own and resembled it, finds a place in this comprehensive picture of the life of our forefathers. It is equally brilliant and instructive; but we must finish our quotations for the present month with the just and consolatory reflections with which he concludes.

"The general effect of the evidence which has been submitted to the reader seems hardly to admit of doubt. Yet, in spite of evidence, many will still image to themselves the England of the Stuarts as a more pleasant country than the England in which we live. It may at first sight seem strange that

society, while constantly moving forward with eager speed, should be constantly looking backward with tender regret. But these two propensities, inconsistent as they may appear, can easily be resolved into the same principle. Both spring from our impatience of the state in which we actually are. That impatience, while it stimulates us to surpass preceding generations, disposes us to overrate their happiness. It is, in some sense, unreasonable and ungrateful in us to be constantly discontented with a condition which is constantly improving. But, in truth, there is constant improvement precisely because there is constant discontent. If we were perfectly satisfied with the present, we should cease to contrive, to labour, and to save with a view to the future. And it is natural that, being dissatisfied with the present, we should form a too favourable estimate of the past.

"In truth, we are under a deception similar to that which misleads the traveller in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare; but far in advance and far in the rear, is the semblance of refreshing waters. The pilgrims hasten forward and find nothing but sand where, an hour before, they had seen a lake. They turn their eyes and see a lake where, an hour before, they were toiling through sand. A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degrees of opulence and civilization. But, if we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find it recede before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion to place the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana. We too shall, in our turn, be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably paid with fifteen shillings a week; that the carpenter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings a day; that labouring men may be as little used to dine without meat as they are now to eat rye bread; that sanitary police and medical discoveries may have added several more years to the average length of human life; that numerous comforts and luxuries which are now unknown, or confined to a few, may be within the reach of every diligent and thrifty working man. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that the increase of wealth and the progress of science have benefited the few at the expense of the many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as the time when England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendour of the rich."—I. 426, 427.

K.

ROBERT HALL ON THE CHARACTER OF DR. PRICE.

THOUGH I disapprove of his religious principles, I feel no hesitation in affirming, in spite of the frantic and unprincipled abuse of Burke, that a more ardent and enlightened friend of his country never lived than that venerable patriarch of freedom. Such were the sentiments of the worshipful Corporation of London, who, in token of their esteem, presented him with the freedom of the city in a gold box; such was the judgment of Mr. Pitt, who long professed himself his admirer, and condescended to seek his advice on questions of finance.-Miscellaneous Works, p. 235.

REVERENCE FOR THE SCRIPTURES.

Jan. 29, 1849.

Seriousness is not constraint of thought; nor levity, freedom.-PALEY.

Ir is, probably, one effect of the Infidelity of the last age, that our own times have witnessed a dread of religious inquiry; which state of mind, in its turn, threatens a reaction, and may cherish thoughtless unbelief. Extreme opinions give birth to extreme and rival opinions; they seem to keep each other in countenance, while both are destitute of evidence and truth. Implicit faith and as implicit a rejection of first principles, alike denote a slavish deference to human authority-a contracted, indolent understanding. Between these habits of soul there is a stronger mutual alliance than common observers may imagine.

The two divisions of the Bible-the books of the Old and those of the New Covenant-are the professed records of God's special communications to our race. Accordingly, it becomes us to treat them with at least the respect which all grave and serious writings demand; and, indeed, with the reverence due to their superior pretensions and importance. Now in what does this reverence consist? Assuredly, it is alike distinguished from levity, indifference, contempt, and from an unwillingness to examine the Scriptures with the care, discrimination and honesty, which they invite and merit.

We dishonour them if we shrink from such an investigation: we do them great injustice by acting as though we supposed that they will not bear the test of Criticism, that they dread the searching eye of editors and interpreters. Let their date, their origin, their external form and their intrinsic qualities, be always remembered. If we purposely disregard these; if we choose to forget that the sacred books are not modern, and not to be confounded with the literary compositions of the day; if we do not take into account the difference between manuscripts and printed documents, between practised and classical writers and the memorialists and, as it were, extemporary recorders, of what they both saw and heard; if we charge the errors of copyists on the authors of the works copied, or, on the other hand, ascribe to the mere penman the inspiration and infallibility belonging to prophets and apostles in their public character; or if we detach words, and even sentences, from their context; in short, if we set up our own tribunal and call the sacred writers before it, and try them by rules of evidence to which they are not amenable,-we then render the Bible, so far as our power extends, a sealed book, and forbid its putting forth its genuine and healthful influences.

Men who exemplify and countenance such methods of reading it, can with no consistency style themselves Protestants. The motto of Protestantism is, "SEARCH the Scriptures:" the essence of the community against which it has lifted up its voice, is, a claim to be the only interpreter of Holy Writ. This ecclesiastical body not simply denounces personal inquiry: it prohibits all inquiry that is irrespective of the teachings and decisions which itself supplies. Here we have union, if you please, but union in the bonds of ignorance and bigotry and spiritual usurpation: and how favourable to this bondage, and to these results, are theories whose tendency is to obstruct or depreciate the impartial study of the Bible!

An analogy subsists between our circumstances and duties, in the ordinary course of the Divine Administration, and our experience and obligations as believers in Revealed Religion and possessors of its records. Both as men and Christians we can enjoy no privilege which does not require from us care and effort proportioned to its value. Knowledge, for example, whether it be merely secular or that "which maketh wise unto salvation," is not offered to passive recipients, is not tendered unconditionally: it must be the recompence of labour, of self-denial, of the industrious use of our time, of the patient and faithful exercise of our thoughts. The end implies means to be employed for its attainment. Even in society, Man can hope for no advantages which are altogether independent on his personal temper and exertions. The case is the same as to his opportunities of spiritual information and improvement. Here, too, we must not consider him as a machine, to be moved and guided at the pleasure of a body of his fellowmen falsely assuming to be infallible; but as a rational creature, endowed with understanding, will and conscience, and forbidden to surrender the rights, or forego the exertions, or transfer the responsibilities, which therefore devolve upon him.

Now the noblest gift of Heaven is the volume that contains the records of Divine Truth and Grace. It follows that whatever directly tends to intercept the light conveyed through those writings, must be a serious evil. Such is usurped authority-such is attempted controlover men's inquiries, belief and practice, in religious matters. Nor are these the only hindrances of the study of the Scriptures; not the only preventives of the Scriptures being duly venerated, examined and made. the rule of faith and life. There are many individuals who cannot and will not discriminate between the Bible and vernacular translations of it; between its substance and genius and original purity, and the interpolations that it has from time to time met with, through accident or design. In a word, the terms in which they speak of this most important of all volumes, shew that they do not read it with the sober judgment which the subject calls for, with the thought and seriousness which are alike removed from levity and superstition.

Biblical Criticism and Interpretation-in their legitimate principles, spirit and exercise-would be the correctives of these widely-spread and dangerous mistakes.

I am confirmed in the remarks now laid before my readers, by the opinion of an author who, evidently, has bestowed much and deep thought upon the subject. In an article of review,* which has for its heading, "Egypt and the Bible," the writer contends against the "low view of the historical element of the Bible," which he finds in some modern volumes. With this part of his reasoning I am not specially concerned, at present. The declaration which he subjoins, is what claims my notice and cordial assent. "But (adds he) we are not prepared to denounce the man who does so, as an infidel; and to plead a sort of præscriptio contra infideles, as a reason for not examining into the truth of his statements-nay, we will go farther. We are not prepared to say that it may not be possible to strike out a sound mean between these views and those generally entertained by Protestants in this

* Dublin University Magazine for October, 1848.

country, which perhaps err in the other extreme. This is not the place for discussing the subject; nor, if it were, would it be proper to enter upon it at the close of an article. We would, however, throw it out for the consideration of our divines, whether there be not some ground for the charge of Bibliolatry, which is brought against the Protestants. of the United Kingdom by the continental Christians, almost without exception; and whether there be not grounds for apprehension, lest the overdrawn statements commonly made at popular meetings respecting the Bible-statements which are not warranted by any thing in the book itself, and which were never made dogmatically by any of the early fathers, or by any of the great divines of the Reformation-may lead, at no distant period, to a fearful reaction.

"We merely throw this out as a hint for the consideration of our divines; but, lest our doing so should be misinterpreted, as implying an admission that the Egyptian chronology is irreconcileable with that of the Bible, we think it right to add that *** nothing has yet been discovered by which it can be proved that the Egyptian monuments go back to an epoch inconsistent with the received chronology of the Hebrew Bible, or by which it is rendered at all probable that they extend beyond the wider limits supplied by the Septuagint version." N.

EXTRACTS FROM MY JOURNAL.-SWITZERLAND.

No. XVI. EXTRACT THE LAST-CLOSE OF MY TOUR. THE wanderings in Switzerland are at an end; the party who for many a bright and happy day have been climbing the giant Alps or exploring the lovely valleys at their feet, are dispersed, and I am left once more alone. Oh, solitude! says the poet, how great are thy charms! Perfectly right, my dear Sir, when one does not live in it, or when it is limited to two or three hours a day, with the prospect of a social walk before dinner and a family re-union in the evening; but when it is continued from hour to hour, and day to day, and year to year, the poetry of solitude vanishes, the heart sinks within one, and life is felt to be at times a burden. I do not mean to say that such was exactly the case with me on finding myself abandoned by all the world, or at least by what was almost all the world to me; yet it was distressing enough, after the deep and heartfelt enjoyment of society for which a long abstinence from all the pleasures of friendship and affection had well prepared me, to find myself seated, as the Italians say, "a quattr' occhj" with myself; add to this, that which had grown by many a month's correspondence and many an hour's musing into an object of such great and happy importance as to make the very heart dance, our tour in Switzerland was now un fait accompli," to use diplomatic language; there was no longer any engrossing object in view; for the present, life had resumed its ordinary monotonous course,

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These are the well-considered sentiments of a man of profound and various learning, whose attachment to the Church, of which he is an honoured minister, cannot be questioned by any who have the pleasure of knowing him.

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